Tea Talk #5 | Did You Just Figure Out Your Life?

DID YOU JUST FIGURE OUT YOUR LIFE?

So it is November and I am writing this from my in-laws guest basement. We were supposed to be in our own place by now, but our original plans of moving to Madison have now changed, which is pretty much on theme for us. We decided to move back to the Midwest because we knew that we would never be able to afford our own house in Portland and we wanted to be closer to my husband’s parents. However, I did not want to live in Chicago again. When I lived their previously, I was continuously depressed and realized I am not a city person. So we had decided on Madison, Wisconsin. An odd choice to some, but one we thought would provide all of the things we desired. Then we decided that unlike the last time we moved, we shouldn’t limit our search to just one area, so we started looking at Grand Rapids and Columbus.

One week we took a trip up to Madison, as I had booked some interviews and it gave us a chance to look at some apartments and spend some quality time in the area. The day was one of the most emotionally exhausting days I have had in a while. I had not slept well the night before, got up early to go to an interview I was pretty nervous about, and then had multiple emotional breakdowns. I started envisioning our lives there and just couldn’t see it bringing us happiness. If we moved back to the Midwest to be close to his parents, shouldn’t we be close to his parents? I knew I didn’t want to live in Chicago, but there were nice places much closer than 3.5 hours away. It all seems so logical now, but on that day…it was explosive. Once again, I felt lost and confused about our decisions or lack thereof, and just felt so completely drained, emotionally. We pulled in at a rest stop because I completely lost my shit. That’s really the only real way of explaining how I felt. It would be so much easier if either of us had a location we were really interested living in, but at the time, a place didn’t exist and it left us as two souls aimlessly wandering around the planet. It didn’t feel good.

So after my breakdown, we decided that we would come up with a new plan. We would look at our options, visit, and take our time deciding. We have rushed into so many of our past life decisions and it never worked out. We had this wonderful opportunity to really take our time to figure it out and once we realized that, it all seemed to get better. Up until a week ago, we were looking at a couple of different places, but last week we both said aloud to each other that we fell in love with a place and that’s where we wanted to be, and not just for the present, but for a long time after that. So now we are just trying to align our lives with the sun and get some things in order. It’s a waiting game, but one we will hopefully win. Life is better when you know where you want to live.

MOLD BE GONE!

We’ve been living in mold sporous room and we feel like it’s slowly killing us. It’s been a battle getting the lovely gracious people we are living with to believe us that mold existed somewhere in the radius of our room and that it was a serious issue. It’s still a battle, but things are happening, finally! We went out ourselves and bought a home test kit and boom! the mold was growing. We thought that would be enough to get some action going, but not exactly. Someone is finally coming out to check out the mold and do a more in-depth test and hopefully, that test will provide all the proof needed and it will get cleaned out and we can breathe again!

See we have had issues with our eyes burning and itching, our throats hurting, and our sinuses just being in complete chaos. It’s also been hard breathing. I have asthma, and although I have not had an attack in years, mold has been known to bring one on. Which is scary to me because I do not have an inhaler nor an ability to get one right now. The past couple of nights we’ve been sleeping in the living room on the couch because we just can’t be in that room, but for the next week we are staying at my brother-in-law’s house, which gives us a reprieve from the toxins. Living with chronic illnesses while living in a room with mold has been a nightmare. Hopefully, neither of us will have any long-lasting issues from this, as that has been known to happen as well, and here’s hoping it’s not black mold, just your run of the mill mold.

IS THAT A NOVEL IN YOUR POCKET, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?

As you may have already known, either from general knowledge or experienced insight, or perhaps from my previous blog post, but November is National Novel Writing Month, more commonly referred to as NaNoWriMo. I am participating wholeheartedly this year. Yes, I am writing a novel. I’m finally doing it, mom! I am keeping my mouth shut about it too. I have so much experience sharing things too soon with people, which ultimately leads to me losing sight of my vision and just giving up. The only person who has any idea about my story is my husband, but he only has a general idea of what it’s about and I told him it in passing. I will not let a single person read my story until my second draft. I have already decided on how my revisions will work. My first go at revisions will be for my eyes only, and it will be to clean up, work on some of the prose and description, and some arcs and plots. I am not focusing too much on the language right now, as I write, because I want to be able to get the entire story on the page. The story is what is important to me right now, as saying you are writing a novel can feel all-encompassing and stressful, so I just tell myself I’m writing a story. That’s it. My second revision will be to flesh out my characters, work on the language, and get rid of everything I don’t need. Then I will let a few people read it and take in some critique, let it digest, then do more revisions. Then I will probably hire an editor and cover page artist and then think about publishing details.

Another reason I am not sharing any details about the novel is because of how it may have to be designed in its final stages to be published. The genre I’m writing is very niche, and has a specific design to it’s cover page for the targeted audience, and it’s not one I am necessarily a fan of. The writing may also have to be changed to fit the style of the genre, as it’s usually written in simpler description than what I would prefer, but I want it to be published! Obviously! So I’ll wait and see what happens. I may be able to publish it in a more general genre and then I would use my real name, but if it is to be published in this specific genre and I have to adjust the writing and design, I may publish it under a pseudonym and save my real name for another story.

THINGS I’M LOVING

The Sinner Season 1 – I became obsessed with this show. Season 1 is on Netflix and it blew my mind. It’s so well written and the plotting of the way the arc developed was perfection. Jessica Biel also killed it.

A Discovery of Witches– This show starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode is based off a book series I read with the same name. It’s unfortunately not available to steam in the United States yet, but what I will say is that it exists and is possible to watch. It already got picked up for two more seasons and I cannot wait! The cinematography is beautiful too!

Big Mouth Season 2– This show kills me.

The Witcher 3 – I’m always so late to playing popular video games, mostly because I cannot usually afford to buy a newly released copy, but I love this game so much.

Bella Grace Magazine – This magazine is so dang beautiful and fills me with creativity. I wish I could work with them.